


tails of the oceans

by STRAYBEBE



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Mermaids, Merpeople, Mythology - Freeform, Mythology References, Sea Monsters, Sea Mythology, Sirens, The Odyssey References, also i mean siren as in the mermaid, halfbloods too maybe, just some sea lads, not the big ugly birds, ok have fun cringing, or human meets siren?, siren meets human..?, yes ok merpeople are also included
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:28:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26167162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/STRAYBEBE/pseuds/STRAYBEBE
Summary: Jung Wooyoung was an avid mythology fan since his grandfather raised him, and adulthood's remaining curiosity landed him in a strange encounter and friendship with an unlikely creature of his childhood, a fire reborn that was questionably raging into something much more dangerous.[2020]
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Park Seonghwa/Song Mingi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	1. trap it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [NOTICE]  
> I have used mythology references from across the globe, and I will continue to discuss these references in deeper detail as the story (which I hope won't be dragged on for too long) progresses onward. I will also discuss the differences between merpeople and the fish-like sirens. As Wooyoung makes a "misdiagnosis", it will obviously be wrong, and so the story's progression will hopefully clear out these misunderstandings. I have tried to make it as complimentary to science as well as to mythology. Enjoy!

* * *

Jung Wooyoung grew up in the middle of the country, where there were no seas, no oceans, no real bodies of water except for the petty little stream that flowed near his house. He would make do of this and built a small bridge and seaport made of the flimsiest twigs he found at the base of the great juniper tree he’d steal leaves off of from his bedroom window upstairs. Out in the farmlands, he was free to do what he wanted to do, and so he gladly helped with farm-related chores like feeding the cows their daily dose of fresh hay (part of it, at least, he could never really carry the bundles on his own) and playing with the sheep over and past the fences, but the stories of the vast oceans and the majestic waves crashing down onto tall and steep cliffs would never leave his young mind. Being a book lover, he would read as many as he could without getting caught with a flashlight under his blankets, hence his wide vocabulary range at such a young age. He especially loved to sit on his grandfather’s lap and listen to these tales of quests finding the strangest yet most attractive treasures imaginable, the infamous Kraken that ruled the wrecks under the waters, and his personal favorite, the empires of sirens.

“Grandpapa,” said five-year-old Wooyoung one night. “What kind of people are sirens?”

Grandpapa smiled brightly, enjoying his grandson’s soothing company. He would willingly answer the same questions over and over and over, for the sake of his grandson to be truly happy and satisfied.

“Are they like mermaids?” Wooyoung asked. “You say they have tails, like fish.”

“And you are right, my boy,” replied Grandpapa. “They are similar to mermaids only in shape. The ones told by sailors much older than me… they said that they are unlike the cartoon mermaids, that they are not all curious and sweet.”

“Can sirens have personalities like us?”

“Oh yes, most definitely. Some can be gentle and kind. Some can be fearful and shy. Some will not hesitate to RAWR!”

Wooyoung giggled as his grandfather tickled him. His laughter was a blessing to the old man’s ears, the music that carried him on.

“Well, I will admit” continued Grandpapa after a good few moments of laughing. “I know many sailors, and they say different things about sirens. Some of them agree with you and me, and say that sirens are pretty much mermaids. But, oh! Can you believe it? Some say they aren’t like mermaids at all! In fact, they more resemble birds!”

“Eh?! How?!”

“I was shocked speechless, too, but here is what they told me. They say that it depends on the place. If you are near Europe, or closer to the Americas, or south of Asia, near Sri Lanka, remember that island? And even near our home, Korea.”

Wooyoung, a natural at geography, mentally ticked the listed locations before nodding along in understanding.

“Now in Greece, which is in Europe, sirens are giant birds, with the head of a woman. They lived on the coasts of land near the seas, where they would have easy access to sailors. These sirens naturally had a beautiful voice, and so they would sing the best they could. It is said that the singing was cursed because as soon as the sailors heard their voices, they would throw themselves off their boats and into the waters below, never to be seen again!”

“Wait. If their singing is so good, then why do they throw themselves out? Is the singing actually that bad that they can’t bear anything at all?”

Grandpapa laughed heartily. “Ah, no, no, my child. As I said, their voices were cursed. Their singing was indeed so beautiful, but it magically gave them the order to get off the boats that instance.”

“Wait. How does anyone know how their singing sounds like? You said no one survived it.”

“ _One_ person did.”

Taking another minute to laugh at Wooyoung’s open mouth, Grandpapa then went on to tell the tale of Odysseus in Homer’s _Iliad._ Without telling him that it could be pure fiction, he described how Odysseus wanted to hear the commotion behind the singing. Odysseus told his men to tie him tight to the ship’s mast, telling them to stuff their own ears with beeswax so they could not hear the incoming singing, strictly instructing them to tie him tighter if he begged them to let him go. When the moment came, the sirens, as ugly and horrendous they looked, flew down and started singing. Odysseus indeed thought it was beautiful, but the first temptation that ravaged his body was to throw himself off the ship. He twisted and writhed, begging and begging his sailors to release him, but the sailors remained true to his first word and only tightened the ropes, the other sailors continuing the rowing like nothing ever happened. Together, this crew made it past the sirens, alive, and with a survivor.

Wooyoung was still gaping at the genius idea.

“So, you see, my dear boy, that other people have different perceptions of the same creature. You and I believe that they are like mermaids, and as you said, they have different personalities. Again, that depends on what part of the world you are looking from.”

“That’s so cool… Wait, Grandpapa, what about—”

“Nuh-uh! That’s enough stories for one night. I suggest you go to sleep now before the roosters annoy you worse in the morning.”

“But—”

“No buts, Wooyoung, my boy. We have a long day tomorrow.”

“Fine…”

Wooyoung was tucked into bed, and the lights were turned off, a single candle lit on his kiddie bedside in case the dark bothered him again. Being the curious little child he was, he dared to ask one more question.

“Grandpapa. Where are Mama’s and Dada’s souls right now?”

_Ah yes, the one question that never failed to break Grandpapa apart._

Though he had no parents, Wooyoung was assured that their souls were watching over him and his grandfather, his father’s father. He was told that they loved to watch him play at his tiny seaport and jump around with the shepherd’s dog. When asking what the word meant, his grandfather ruefully chuckled and explained that souls were the spirits of the departed, sometimes acting as guardians to the living, the people whom they love more than anything else. Wooyoung was still a child, but he had gotten used to his parents’ absence since their departure when he was barely able to walk. Every time he uttered the word ‘mama’ or ‘dada’, his grandfather would excuse himself to silently cry into his sleeve before smiling a genuinely happy smile so he could play more with his grandson.

Soon enough, he was able to grasp the depth of the meaning of death, and at the surprisingly young age of six, he was awarded for his effort with a funeral.

The rest were very hazy memories. Wooyoung was told that he was very silent at the procession yet he would refuse to leave the casket that contained his grandfather, gripping the handles and shooing away the people who were to carry it away. There was no one in the farmlands who could take him in, so, long story short, he was sent away to near the coasts, where his paternal uncle would become his official guardian. There was the bigger and more congested city that Wooyoung would have to get used to, as this was his new home.

Years past. This specific phase of his life was quite ordinary, like any other child his age. There, he went to school and learned how to read and write. He would either fight with the cousin he was forced to live with, or they would cry into each other’s arms for reasons only they and God knew. He grew more and attended middle and high school as a rather quiet yet rebellious teenager, managing to sip some illegal sips and sleep with a few agemates along the way. It was dull, he thought to himself, and he moved on from his childhood and the bright colors he had lived, the young flame near dead.

University rekindled that same flame, suddenly bursting into a roaring fire leaping high into the air.

Mythology seemed to be the right course of study for him, for the word itself awakened the child that had once been lost within his deepest memories. Wooyoung was attentive in classes like never before, jotting down everything the professor said. He would waltz into and spend hours at the library to find what he thought he could find, letting his gaze gently move over the words that would leave neither his head nor his heart. Not many of the subjects he took were related to the stories his grandfather had once told him, but he was even more interested to learn that those specific stories were taught in deeper (and sometimes gruesome) detail. And at night, he would lay in bed and visualize them behind closed eyes, smiling ruefully at the beautiful passion reignited.

He proceeded to work four short years to attain a bachelor’s degree. It was on the night of the celebration dinner that _the true story_ finally began.

“I have decided,” said his uncle, “that, since both of you have now successfully graduated, it would be appropriate to give you some grown-up work to do.”

The cousins smiled at each other from across the small, circular table – as adults, they now acknowledged each other respectfully, unlike how they used to always bicker as kids.

“How does sailing sound for you two? Yunho, you already know a lot about handling different boats, seeing you went on trips with your friends. And Wooyoung, you’ve always had a thing for oceans, I’ve noticed. I arranged a place for both of you to stay, quite near the coast. Both of you will navigate your way around, and both of you will love it, I’m sure. This is a brand new journey for you.”

Though, as a slight warning from beforehand, the initial stages of said “journey” were… not all that glamorous. Not at all.

Wooyoung quickly came to realize that he despised anything and everything that had a relationship to sailing and boats. As soothing and freeing the concept may have indeed seemed, it was a tedious and tiring chore that he wished to stay away from, unlike the farming tasks he so damn badly missed, his grandfather whom he would help…

Now normally, he would want to be the idle member of the boat, where he preferred not to mess up any of the tasks responsible, and instead leaned on the rail, staring out into the seas, daydreaming about the mythological creatures that revived his love for the strange waters, the other half of the planet that was yet to be explored. His cousin, oh his one true love, enjoyed quashing it all.

“OYE!”

Wooyoung jumped, almost slipping on the deck. Grabbing ahold of the rails, the twenty-one-year-old turned to glare at his older and taller cousin, who was also glaring him down.

“Stop idling around and get your ass here! We need to finish this off before anything else can damage the nets.”

 _Ugh,_ thought Wooyoung, _great. Not even thirty minutes into sea. More physical work. Just what I needed. And I got to stay here for hours. Thanks a lot, Uncle Jung._

The next few hours were spent heaving up nets and doing other shit Wooyoung refused to comprehend. Yunho had the strongest arms, so he would do the heaving to pluck up fish stuck in the nets, admiring them for a few minutes before dropping them back into the ocean. Apparently, one of the guys thought that fishing would be a good group activity, and another suggested that they bring their old Engineering (or Mechanics, Wooyoung could not remember which) project to the boat.

Thankfully, Wooyoung was not asked to do any of the work from then on, as Yunho volunteered to carry on, alongside his university friends. Song Mingi had brought the project with him earlier, and Kim Hongjoong organized the mechanisms and attachments to the boat’s “tow”, and as they had the project lifted onto the boat, Wooyoung had seen that it was a tall, glass cylinder with thick frames supporting the strange thing in place… it really looked like something you’d see in sci-fi movies where something is hooked up to it inside, floating around in eerie green liquid. There it stood, empty but chilling, as it descended into the water, still attached to the towing mechanism. Wooyoung had gotten shivers just by looking at it.

Before anyone could say anything, however, a violent tug rocked the boat to one side, all four crew members losing their balance and slamming onto the floor.

“Did we catch something?” Yunho asked shakily.

The boat continued to sway from side to side, less and less violent by the minute, as the crew was able to regain balance by clinging to the rails. As Hongjoong punched a few buttons from inside the cabin, the contraption was slowly (and not so steadily) lifted, swinging harder and harder. The tow threatened to snap under the groaning pressure of metal trying to lift something filled to the brim with water and possibly a shark.

“We must have caught a big one!” Yunho exclaimed with a big grin on his face.

“Hold on, everyone,” called Mingi. “It could be a shark. Stay away from it!”

Finally, the cylinder was up in the air and lowered gently to rest (not so much) on the deck, a little to the cabin’s left. The boat’s floor was all wet and slippery because whatever was in that cylinder thrashed around so much that the seawater inside spilled out in great amounts. The boat finally stopped swaying, much to Wooyoung’s relief.

Yunho was somewhat right. It was moving and thrashing too fast, so none of the crew members had the slightest guess on their latest and biggest prize. Mingi was the bravest to inch the nearest (the others dared not take a step further in fear should the thing jump out and possibly take their lives) to the cylinder, but screamed and fell onto his back, scrambling away.

Curiosity took over fear, and it was Wooyoung’s turn to advance onto the cylinder, despite his cousin’s distant warnings. Whatever it was, it was not a fish.

_But it was not human either._

Wooyoung had a terrible feeling stab his gut.

As the thing slowed to catch a breath, it was made out to be, well, between both. It was, as everyone saw, a very strange creature, with a long human torso and an even longer fish-like tail compensating for the rest of the body’s lack of legs. It had oddly glimmering scales, glowing bright emerald, the light along the fins of its back pulsating with each breath it took as if it were a machine. The head… with long gashes of black across either side of the neck, and ears looking like that of a seahorse’s, it was obvious that, Wooyoung quietly reminded himself, something was too wrong. He did not want to believe it, but he did. He ended up believing.

_Oh, Grandpapa. It seems you were right after all._

The dark, glowing eyes locked onto Wooyoung’s, and its bruised lips parted to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth. The anger returned to the animal. It quietly screeched in the most ferocious way any animal would have and proceeded to bang the insides of the strong glass with webbed fists.

_You were so fucking right._


	2. respect it

* * *

_All is serene, but until dusk settles in_

_Then the sun holds the only warmth that the world ever needed_

_Round and round and round the fools go_

_In search of the treasure that is the colder trap_

_Snaring the night sky of the auroras into their pitiful cage_

_But not to worry, my dear children of the light._

_The truth in the earth’s core is to reveal anyhow._

_So when the oceans lie and the sands retreat,_

_And the mirrors grow shrouded with a feverish fog_

_Unaware of the illusion staring them in the face, mocking them_

_Then the mighty waves come crashing down onto those pathetic fools_

_And the so-called superior nation of humanity? its title fails._

_For that is the world’s true face, and once again, nature prevails._

* * *

Wooyoung remembered the poem all too clearly. One of his high school one-night-stand buddies was into poetry and recited it, supposedly lulling him to sleep. It was a shitty poem that rhymed not the least save the last two lines and made no sense back then, but the words were etched into his memories from that night on, and it was finally appropriate for the situation he and his cousin had gotten themselves stuck in. The same night stood chilly, bare to the curses that emerged after dusk. For reasons both known and unknown, the ocean waves were energetic like never in the past five decades. Onshore, the cabin held the strangest atmosphere any of them had ever been in. Three of the four men apparently saw it coming, and stared into space, trying to comprehend what just happened that dreary afternoon.

They were the fools. The auroras in the cage were the monster in their own glass project. Something bad was going to happen.

But, of course, Wooyoung held these thoughts and preferred to keep them to himself, though he started having second thoughts about his decision – maybe a warning wouldn’t hurt?

The cabin was very enchanting, to say the least, with quite a forest-y touch to it. The area had a soft, golden glow to it by the fireplace and candles lighting up the rooms dimly but calmly. The four were currently in the lounge, Mingi having taken up the entire couch with his long body, laying on it and refusing to get up, staring into the ceiling. Wooyoung and Hongjoong occupied the poufs near the fireplace with warm mugs of hot chocolate cradled in their hands. Yunho took up the liberty to aggressively pace back and forth like a fanatic. Clearly, he was new to this.

 _What a noob,_ said an unfamiliar voice in Mingi's head. _He should get used to it._

Hongjoong scoffed. “How typical of animals. They never assess the situation, do they?”

Mingi shook his head. Wooyoung did not answer and continued to stare into the fire.

Yunho was the only one who was genuinely shocked at this… _thing_ that they had caught by mere luck. Seeing that none of the crew was reacting the same way as he did, overflowing confusion overtook him in the form of rage.

“Are you guys kidding? Are you guys fucking kidding?! There’s a _monster_ in our _project_ and it’s the most _inhumane_ and _inanimal_ thing the universe could ever think of making up, and you guys are standing there like empty fucking _dolls_?!”

Wooyoung internally agreed with him. It would be a lie to say he wouldn’t know, but he was secretly anticipating this encounter. He shuddered at the thought of it.

“Goddamn, Yunho, shut up,” said Hongjoong, setting down his mug on the oval carpet beside him and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m more worried about that monster, not you.”

“Oh for _fuck’s_ sake.”

Wooyoung winced at his cousin’s habit of swearing when angry. Very, very angry.

Yunho was seething as he stood stiffer than Odysseus’s ship’s mast, Hongjoong looking up at him as if he was asked by a younger student to help them with their history homework.

“You _saw_ it. You _SAW_ the monster leave because _SOMEONE_ decided to set it free!”

Wooyoung shrank into his pouf. He waited for this magical moment.

Hongjoong rolled his eyes. “It isn’t the kid’s fault,” he said plainly. “That monster is still a living creature. He was doing his job as someone with the last of humanity’s hopes left in him.”

“ _IS SETTING A FUCKING MAN-EATING MONSTER INTO THE FUCKING OCEAN TO EAT OTHER FUCKING SHARKS HUMANITY?!”_

“Shut up,” murmured Mingi from the couch. “You’re giving me a hangover with all your shouting.”

“ _AM I THE ONLY FUCKING ONE WHO IS THE LEAST FUCKING BIT SANE?!_ ”

“Wake up and see that the glass contraption held it in place,” said Hongjoong as calm as ever. “There was no way it would have harmed us. It tried, but we parted ways with it without a scratch.”

Yunho’s face was red from excessive strain, a nerve throbbing by his temple. Wooyoung wanted the earth to swallow him up, feeling excessively guilty because Hongjoong became his alleged lawyer.

“Wooyoung knew what he was doing,” said Hongjoong firmly.

“ _HE IS A FUCKING MYTHOLOGY GRADUATE. WHO THE FLYING FUCK EVEN BELIEVES THAT FUCKING SHIT ANYMORE?!_ ”

“It was something that he recognized, and clearly, it is no myth if we saw it before our own eyes. You. Me. Mingi. As science graduates. We may be creative, but none of us have the ability to hallucinate a creature like that in deep detail. We believe it if we see it.”

Yunho took a deep breath. He audibly heaved in a sharp breath with each phrase he then said. His voice dropped, and so did Wooyoung’s heart.

“Alright. He knew what he was doing. And we saw it with our own eyes, as you said. So, I think I saw him _TALKING TO THAT BASTARD BEFORE LETTING IT GO._ ”

Wooyoung dreaded this moment the most.

“Yunho, listen—” Hongjoong started, but Yunho cut him off.

“ _DON’T EVEN THINK OF DEFENDING THAT SHIT. WOOYOUNG WAS COMPLIMENTING THE MONSTER. WHO WOULD EVEN CALL A MESS OF A FISH ‘BEAUTIFUL’?! AND ‘ELEGANT’?! AND ‘CHARMING’?! WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT TO SOMETHING THAT TRIED TO KILL YOU?!_ ”

Wooyoung’s hands began to tremble, and he quickly put down his mug beside Hongjoong’s, hiding his hands in his pockets.

“Yunho, seriously—”

“ _ONLY A DELUSIONAL AND MENTALLY UNSTABLE ASSHOLE WOULD EVEN THINK OF FLIRTING WITH—_ ”

“Enough.”

The voice was not Hongjoong’s, but rather Mingi’s. The deep bass rang through the cabin, a soft pillow pressing onto Wooyoung’s ears, providing cool comfort from the screaming. The screamer in question halted, jaw clenched.

“It’s like Hongjoong hyung said,” said Mingi very slowly. “We believe it if we see it. Besides, you have absolutely no right to call Wooyoung, or anyone at all, a ‘delusional and mentally unstable asshole’.”

He sprung up from the couch and strolled toward Yunho’s frozen figure in a leisurely but threateningly way, moving closer and closer. “Morally speaking, he did the right thing.”

“ _BUT_ —”

“Picture the scene in your head again. Wooyoung went to the container when we were occupied with the boat’s propellers, correct? You were closer by the deck, so you could hear him, yes? You said he talked to the monster, and complimented it before directing the contraption back into the ocean for it to swim away safely, right? Now notice. The monster, as you saw, made no move to attack us during and after Wooyoung released it. It could leap out of the water and scratch us across the faces, but it didn’t. It left us in peace, just as Wooyoung had released it in peace.”

Mingi was now an inch away. His nose barely brushed Yunho’s as he stared into his hyung’s eyes. Wooyoung thanked Mingi for silencing him, otherwise, he would have collapsed of a bursting head and heart.

“You will respect your cousin as an adult,” whispered Mingi. “You will respect everyone and everything as an adult. You will appropriately assess all situations as an adult. You will act the adult you are, not the child you used to be. That was all the past. What happened, happened. We move on. Is that clear?”

Yunho was still seething, but the searing glare had evidently cooled down considerably.

* * *

Upon the loft, Wooyoung was to share a bed with Yunho, who had not been seen since Mingi put him in his place. Truth be told, he thought Yunho was absolutely right. What the hell was he even thinking, complimenting a deranged mess of a living nightmare? It was anything but beautiful, anything but elegant, anything but charming—

Wait. No. He was correct. Wooyoung was absolutely correct. The monster, as furious as it seemed, was indeed beautiful, elegant, charming.

Wooyoung lay flat on the bed in his nightclothes. He closed his eyes. As much as he hated it, the event materialized before him.

It was that same, cloudy afternoon. The monster, which had been silently screeching at him and him only, had evidently become tired, though it attempted to show no depletion of energy, reserving an image of a truly frightening animal. It sure looked like it was screaming, with its jaws wide open in one long yell, face contorted in unimaginable anger. A row or two of sharp teeth had flashed at him, and those dark, glowing eyes never left Wooyoung’s.

Wooyoung had immediately known that this was no fury – this was fear. The fear of death. The creature assumed that it was going to be killed, and its ferociousness made sense. It was a trapped animal, after all.

Speaking of fear, an arrowhead tinted with it shot him through his breast as he heard Mingi yell from the back of the boat.

“Something’s stuck in the propellers. Someone, please help me with it!”

Wooyoung breathed a brief sigh of relief as Hongjoong rushed to help, not without whispering something in Yunho’s ear, who stayed, but at a distance, eyeing the creature warily in disbelief.

“I’m dreaming," Yunho repeatedly mumbled. "Dreaming.”

The glass container was unrealistically strong, as none of the punches fazed its composure inside out. The thing had initially been thrashing around too much, the image becoming blurred and distorted. Apparently, the sight of Wooyoung pissed it off much more than Yunho’s, Hongjoong’s, or Mingi’s faces. Forget pissing off, that was an understatement. Angry, impatient, ravenous… what was the word?

It was _fearful_.

“What _did_ you do to that thing?”

“I don’t know.…”

“Are you absolutely sure—”

“Yes, I am, Yunho. Just shut up.”

Wooyoung took a cautious step to the container. To his greatest surprise, the monster shrank back. The fear was now obvious. The creature was drawing in heavy breaths, the gills at the throat moving open and shut, not like the ear frills that looked painfully stiff. Webbed fists were now hands, and they gripped the glass behind the lengthy, curled tail. Its mouth was still revealing the sharp teeth it had, but the expression was slightly differently contorted like it was going to cry.

“I don’t know if you can hear me,” said Wooyoung in the softest, most honey-like voice he could muster. “But I think that you’re very beautiful.”

The expression softened. A realization dawned onto the monster. Suddenly, Wooyoung felt bad for mentally calling it a monster, for he could indeed see the beauty in the features that he negatively exaggerated. Behind him, Yunho gaped, not in awe, but in disgust.

“You are a very beautiful creature, and I wish I knew what you are,” continued Wooyoung, not losing the sweet tone.

_You cannot be a mermaid. You are not a siren, either…. Just… what are you? Could you be both? Is that even possible?_

The creature was listening intently, its ear frills perked. The fear was slowly dripping out of its body, and its dark scales were beginning to glisten again, the dorsal fins’ emerald glow throbbing softer.

“You are a tall, beautiful, elegant, charming creature,” said Wooyoung as he took another step to the container, to which the monster did not shrink back any further. “My friends and I mean no harm. You do not deserve to be trapped like this. You do not deserve to be restricted.”

Yunho almost went for his throat when Wooyoung said, “You deserve to be freed, to roam your home as you like.”

There was a very peculiar feature of this monster that Wooyoung noticed only now. He was always told that both mermaids and the fish-like sirens had long, flowing hair that cascaded past their pelvis, but this creature’s dark hair was barely till the neck. The dark hair was surprisingly short, like his own. It looked like it had been freshly but rather messily and hurriedly cut around a few months ago, and Wooyoung confirmed it when his eyes fell on a few white scars dangerously near its seahorse-like ears.

One of the locks of hair floated in front of a glowing eye. Wooyoung had the urge to brush it away with his finger. Instead, he strode over to the boat’s cabin and grabbed the same remote Hongjoong had created, running his eyes over it before pressing one then the other button. He watched from inside as Mingi and Hongjoong yelled something, Yunho scrambling away. He heard nothing, and instead focused on the container that had risen, slowly swung to a side outside the boat, and lowered into the ocean waters out of sight. The crane shook a bit, and the cylinder was lifted again, still full of saltwater, but no mermaid.

Wooyoung sighed. _That was definitely a siren._

Or was it?

Back in the present, Wooyoung stared into the cabin’s ceiling, wondering if he ever—

“You did the right thing,” said an awkward voice, and Wooyoung jolted upright as Yunho walked toward their bed.

“I-I’m sorry?”

“You. Did. The. Right. Thing.”

Yunho sounded like a defeated child admitting a half-assed apology to a sibling he had hurt, but that manner was thrown out of the window in the next second.

Yunho sighed, seating himself beside his cousin. “Look. I’m so sorry for what happened down there. I… I acted on impulse, and I gotta practice that a bit. Some. A lot. Mingi was right that I was acting childish, and you were right that you did the humane thing. Because you _are_ human. And you’re the most human among the four of us.”

Wooyoung did not know what to say.

Yunho sighed again. “I am so sorry for insulting you. I reflected on my actions. Just because you’re a mythology graduate and I engineering, it doesn’t mean that I have the right to hurt you like that.”

“No,” mumbled Wooyoung, hugging his knees. “No, you didn’t hurt me, it’s fine…”

Yunho looked at him with true sadness. It was had to believe that his cousin had so badly lost his otherwise cool composure, but even more so that he apologized sincerely, something he would often refuse to do back when they were kids.

“What was that?”

Wooyoung blinked.

“What was that? Did you recognize it? You must have studied something about it, haven’t you?”

“Oh…”

Wooyoung suddenly felt ashamed to answer, but a warm look from his dear cousin prompted him to continue.

“Well… There could only be two distinct options. It could be a siren, or it could be a mermaid. They’re very similar, see, but can be completely different when it comes down to deeper detail. A physical difference is the location of their gills, you know, with how they breathe underwater. Sirens apparently have them near their guts and are harder to spot, while mermaids have it more obvious by their throats. They also have different diets. They both like fish, but mermaids tend to lead a more vegetarian diet of plants and weeds, while sirens, the predators they are, hunt for living things, which may sometimes include other mermaids. Behavior wise, sirens are hostile and won’t hesitate to kill, but mermaids are more docile and fearful, but friendly, nonetheless. Apparently, there are some stories which talk about a human and a mermaid falling in love—”

Wooyoung suddenly realized that he had begun rambling without pause. He stopped himself and buried his face in the crevice that his arms made, abashed, and mumbled in addition, “But they’re not real. I could be mistaken with the things I said.”

Yunho had been listening carefully and was slightly taken aback when his cousin stopped talking mid-sentence. He smiled ruefully and gently reassured him that he was doing just fine.

“So, you said that sirens and mermaids,” said Yunho, “they both like fish, hm? Speaking of it, Mingi and I agreed on going to the ocean again tomorrow and do some actual fishing. We can eat some by the shores. I was also hoping that we see… our guest… again, so maybe we can give it some.”

Wooyoung’s head shot up.

“You have trouble pinpointing its true identity,” continued Yunho, “so I figured we can play it safe and give it some of the fish we would catch. It is a win-win situation, after all. I mean, it depends if it even appears again… but really. Let’s seriously do it. Hongjoong also wants to listen to your observations. You in, buddy?”

Wooyoung felt even more embarrassed, seeing that the crew saw his genuine love for mythology. Hongjoong had said what they had witnessed was more like a legend, for legends have a possibility to be true, whereas a myth is completely fabricated.

A strange determination burned in Wooyoung’s heart. He suddenly wanted to see the majestic creature again, to get close to it, to brush that lock of hair away from its eyes. Wooyoung lay in bed for the rest of the night, counting down the minutes he would see it again, and he silently imagined what it was like to befriend it, as wild as the thought seemed. He smiled to himself, a tear rolling down one temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah i wrote that poem, what about it? extra asf, I know, but I HAD to spice up the drama somehow, didn't I? also, the poem is important as of a reconsideration ;)


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